Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - 1881.djvu/68

 Ix INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

jccted by the severer class of critics, although some may be defended with solid arguments. They are as follows :

The doxology in the Lord's Prayer (Matt. vi. 13), which was unknown to Origen, Tertullian, and Cyprian (in their commentaries on the Lord's Prayer), and is missing in the oldest MSS., in the Itala and Vulgate. It probably came in from 1 Chron. xxix. 11, and from the ancient liturgies.*

The passage about the descent of the angel troubling the pool of Bethesda (John v. 3, 4, from " waiting " till " he had"), which expresses a popular superstition.

The section on the woman taken in adultery (John vii. 53-viii. 11, in ten MSS. at the end of the Gospel of John, in four at the end of Luke xxi.), which no doubt rests on a primitive and authentic tradition, but was not written by John.

The concluding twelve verses of Mark (xvi. 9-20), which are, however, sustained by witnesses older than our oldest MSS.f

It was a case of honesty versus prudence. No change seems to have given wider dissatisfaction than this. The doxology is very appropriate, and will always be used ; but this, of course, does not affect the critical question, which is simply one of evi- dence. Its insertion from liturgical usage is far more easily accounted for than its omission.
 * The English Revision puts the doxology in the margin.

f The genuineness of the conclusion of Mark has been de- fended with minute learning and ability by John W. Burgon, B.D. (now archdeacon of Chichester), in an almost exhaustive monograph of 334 pages : The Last Ttcelte Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark Vindicated against Recent Critical Objections and Established, Oxford and London, 1871. His apologetic zeal leads him into injustice to the oldest and best MSS. which omit the passage, and to the most meritorious modern critics Tisch-

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